MS Partners Bailing Over Delays In Releases

Frosty Piss writes "A new study says past delays in Microsoft's products are causing some businesses to think twice about renewing the long-term service agreements that include rights to upgrade to future versions of its programs. 26 percent of the 61 IT professionals surveyed by Forrester Research said they had decided not to renew their Microsoft Software Assurance agreements when they expire, opting instead to buy the software as needed." Microsoft says the study is not representative of what it's hearing from its customers.

Maybe they don't want your upgrade.

[cyanyde]

Perhaps they simply feel that the software assurance makes no sense when the actual software releases are steps behind the OS releases. The only thing keeping them instep is microsoft's cutting ties of backwards compatibility. Bravos IT managers.

It is ... and it isn't.

[khasim]

It's not so much that anyone should believe this "report".

They're in the business of whoring themselves out to whomever has the biggest wallet.

That they're turning on Microsoft says more than their reports ever will. If they don't sell "reports", they don't get paid. So are more people looking to buy "reports" that do NOT favour Microsoft now? Has the market changed that much?

Re:Question

[wawannem]

Based on my experience with their agreements, I would imagine that they are cost-prohibitive to most small businesses. Their volume licensing agreements like Open Licensing (http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/programs/open/ default.mspx) are really meant to give customers some peace-of-mind when managing a large deployment. This program is meant for organizations with less than 250 workstations, but I can't see anyone seeking this sort of agreement unless they have over 100.

What I would like to know, is how reliable this can be when only surveying 61 people. I mean, I know that statistics can be wrangled just about any way you want, but it doesn't seem to me to be very useful to ask such a small number. Before getting my hopes up that M$'s poor performance is finally being noticed by businesses, I will wait to see how their sales numbers look the next few quarters.

-W

Re:Question

[bladesjester]

Indeed. The sample set is amazingly small and it says nothing in the article about the kind of places that they asked.

Most larger places tend to be insane when it comes to getting large purchases approved. That's why a lot of them do the plans like this - the IT department only has to get it approved once instead of trying to convince the higher ups that they need to spend money every time a new operating system or office suite comes out. As a bonus, they also get support (which goes a long way in convincing the higher ups because it means that someone else can be held accountable if things go wrong).

I also have to say that I must be the first case in the history of Slashdot where a first post has had a positive rating...

i don't know

[mistahkurtz]

if i buy it.

i work in corporate IT sales, and it simply seems that this survey was done almost immediately after a major desktop OS and office suite release. it seems to me that many companies, especially in the SMB market would be more inclined to not renew SA now, and purchase it in the future before the next major releases. this seems to be consistent with what i've seen with my customers, some of who have opted to not renew SA on desktop OS and office, however renewed SA on server 2003, with the release of server 2008 on the horizon.

anyway, plenty of companies are still renewing their EA and Select and MOV agreements, whether they truly need all the features or not. remember, you get a lot more than free upgrades w/ SA.

my $.02

Re:Question

[Technician]

Or do they have the license to damage your business at will?

It's in the EULA.

Forcing their hand does have it's drawbacks.. such as no MS software permitted anywhere..

http://www.penguinista.org/cgi-bin/article?article Id=723 [penguinista.org]
http://www.qcs-rf.com/wordpress/?m=200703 [qcs-rf.com]
http://bsadefense.com/resources/article_independen t-co-uk.asp [bsadefense.com]

The bad publicity is supposed to shake up pirates to get legit.
The bad karma shakes up legal users into looking at alternatives.

This one swore off MS products entirely due to a BSA audit.
http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html [com.com]

IBM ELA analysis service

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM offers their clients a free service were they analise your ELA and give you some pointers on how to save money. Obviously most pointers will be in the form of "replace MSSQL with DB2" but many of the recommendations are to replace software like MS Office with opensource equivalents. When the time comes to renegotiate your ELA you can get a better deal by showing that you dont "need" the ELA . Its free and worth a try.